Review: Focal’s Bathys and Azurys Headphones

Having reviewed many headphones, smartphones, and laptops, it’s rare for me to be surprised. In the best of times, a product you don’t expect to care about becomes beloved; in my case, like the Oura Ring and Remarkable Paper Pro. In rarer cases, a beloved product turns out to be disappointing. But with this dual review, I have the rare case of both: a review in which I don’t share the general love for a product, but do love its sister product, which hasn’t got nearly enough attention.The headphones in question are the Bathys and Azurys from the French audio brand Focal. They look identical, save the chic blue of the Azurys — with Focal’s distinctive circle-covered earcups, which some find stylish but I view as ugly and cheap — and they both use the same 40mm Aluminium Magneiusm ‘M’-shaped dome dynamic drivers. On paper, the Bathys are the wireless version of these headphones, and the Azurys should offer the same sound quality but as simple wired headphones, with stripping out the added weight and complexity of the batteries and on-board chips.But that isn’t my experience. Both have a fun V-sound signature, with bright but not piercing treble and a rich bass, but, on the Bathys, that V is shifted down range, creating a more present, rumbly bass; and combined with the pronounced locked-in feeling I experienced when using it with noise-cancellation, it made the Bathys sound oppressive on my ears. Rather than losing myself in the music, I felt conscious that I had a speaker pressed to my eardrums, shooting sound into them; and I felt tired after half an hour of listening.I haven’t experienced this issue on other Bluetooth headphones, which I use with noise-canceling turned on all day. The weight could be part of this, but I’ve used Dyson’s far heavier Zone headphones without issue, so I suspect it’s down to the tuning of the drivers when noise-cancellation is enabled.One of the benefits of buying the Bathys, compared to ordinary Bluetooth headphones like those from Bose, is that you can listen to them like traditional wired headphones, with all these features turned off. But if you’re using them like that, then why would you buy Bluetooth headphones in the first place?Focal Azure and Bathys, respectively. Courtesy of FocalThis was a hard question to answer before, but the Azurys destroys it, being lighter on head — and therefore far more comfortable — and $250 cheaper at $549. The lower price also makes it easier to swallow the plastic build quality, and, to my ears, they sound noticeably better. They have a cleaner, more balanced sound, with a ton of detail across the range, and they do so while still keeping Focal’s distinctive bass shelf. I wish the Azurys had a wider soundstage, but this isn’t something you look for in Focal or closed-back headphones generally.They also don’t have a lot of competition; in part because premium closed-back headphones don’t have a huge market. If you’re listening to Hi-Fi music at home, you’d surely prefer the expansive soundstage and greater detail of open-back headphones like the Austrian Audio Hi-X65 — which remain my favorite headphones on the market. Then, if you’re in a loud environment, you would shift to noise-canceling Bluetooth headphones, like the Bose, which are convenient and sound pretty great.If you are interested in closed-back headphones at this price point, I still personally wouldn’t buy these. The Beyerdynamics DT 1770 Pro are significantly chunkier and have a more neutral, flat sound profile, but they’re well built, comfortable, and have a more detailed sound, which you can tune to make more V-shaped should you like. They’re usually also available for less than the Azuyrs.

Review: Focal’s Bathys and Azurys Headphones

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